Yemen combat death is 1st since Trump in office

By Ahmed Al-Haj and Maggie Michael

Published 2:43 pm, Sunday, January 29, 2017

SANAA, Yemen — A U.S. military service member was killed Sunday during a raid against al Qaeda militants in central Yemen that also left nearly 30 others dead, including women and children. The loss of the service member is the first-known combat death of a member of the U.S. military under President Trump.

“Americans are saddened this morning with news that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said in a statement.

The U.S. has been striking al Qaeda in Yemen from the air for more than 15 years, mostly using drones, and Sunday’s surprise pre-dawn raid could signal a new escalation against extremist groups in the Arab world’s poorest but strategically located country.

An al Qaeda official and an online news service linked to the terror group said the raid left about 30 people dead. Among the children killed was Anwaar, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric killed in a U.S. air strike in Yemen in 2011, according to the girl’s grandfather.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that three service members were wounded in the raid and that a fourth one was injured in a “hard landing” in a nearby location. The aircraft was unable to fly afterward and was “intentionally destroyed,” it added.

It said 14 militants from al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, formally known as “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,” were killed in the assault and that U.S. service members taking part in the raid captured “information that will likely provide insight into the planning of future terror plots.”

A U.S. defense official said the raid was approved by Trump. President Barack Obama had been briefed on it before he left office on Jan. 20, but for operational reasons it was not ready to be executed before he departed, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The news service linked to al Qaeda in Yemen likened the raid to a “massacre against Muslims” and said U.S. warplanes were first seen in the sky above the area at 9 p.m. Saturday and that the raid began at 2 a.m. Sunday, with 16 missiles hitting three houses near Yakla village in Radaa district.

A two-hour gun battle ensued after American service members landed on the ground, it said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, long seen by Washington as among the most dangerous branches of the global terror network, has exploited the chaos of Yemen’s civil war, seizing territory in the south and east.